In my previous posts, I’ve provided my ideas about what constitutes a great PM. This time, I would like to bridge to what these ideas can mean for someone’s overall career. Of course, it seems obvious that if you’re a great PM, you’ll get more opportunities. Certainly you’d seem like the person to call for bigger and hairier and more complex projects. But I bring this up because of the unexpected career paths I’ve seen people take based on a foundation of PM ability. Examples of what I mean:

My own career path: Engineer – to functional group lead – to line Director and release manager – to multi-site PM – to contract project manager – to PM and development methodology creator and project coach – to head of project management support group – to Interim manager for SQA and regulatory groups – to consulting business owner – to consultant/acting VP of product development – to web business owner.

A colleague named Barbara: Software configuration management coordinator – to project manager for small vendor RFP effort – to software program release manager for post-development product integration – to program manager for major corporate software initiative – to development manager for new software installation product.

Colleague named Pete: Software developer – to software group manager – to software project manager plus member of development process improvement committee – to head of new PMO/project support group – to director of projects.

Colleague named Warren: hardware engineer – to software developer – to software quality assurance consultant – to project management consultant – to project methodology consultant – to consultant / acting Director of projects for a product group – to program manager for medical products – to Director at a web start-up – to VP of engineering at a medical startup.

Read the rest at ProjectConnections.